LONDON : Harry Potter may perish in the final installment of the
boy wizard series in which two main characters die, author J.K.
Rowling hinted in a television interview.
Speaking on Monday evening, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, 40, said she
was well on the way to finishing the eagerly-awaited seventh Potter
book.
"I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990, so I've known
exactly how the series is going to end," she told a chat show on
Channel 4 television.
"The final chapter is hidden away although it's now changed very
slightly. One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die
that I didn't intend to die," Rowling said.
"A price has to be paid, we are dealing with pure evil here. They
don't target extras, do they? They go for the main characters -
well, I do."
Asked whether one of the casualties would be Potter himself,
Rowling said she had never been tempted to kill off the magician
before the finale.
At the same time, she added: "I can completely understand, however,
the mentality of an author who thinks, 'Well I'm gonna kill them
off because that means there can be no non-author written sequels.
So it will end with me and after I'm dead and gone they won't be
able to bring back the character."
The author said she did not want to commit herself either way on
Potter's fate, telling interviewers Richard Madeley and Judy
Finnegan: "I don't want the hate mail, apart from anything
else."
Speaking of her life as a famous writer, Rowling admitted to having
been in denial during the unprecedented success of her first three
books on the adventures of Potter and his friends at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"That's where my reputation for being po-faced comes from. I was
like a rabbit caught in the headlights," she said.
Rowling, who shot to fame from humble roots, also revealed that she
still writes in cafes and based the character of Potter's good
friend Hermione on a combination of herself and her sister when
they were young.
As for the future after Potter, Rowling said: "I don't think I'm
ever going to have anything like Harry again. You just get one like
Harry."
The first six books in the series have sold more than 300 million
copies worldwide and been translated into 63 languages.
The first four have also been made into blockbuster movies.
The seventh novel is reportedly due to be published next year at
the earliest. AFP/yy
